Chapter 2. Fate or Misfortune?
Hayeong’s pupils, which had momentarily gone hazy, suddenly sharpened.
Marriage? Did she mishear something? Hayeong rubbed her ears furiously and asked again.
“G-Grandma, I must’ve heard that wrong, right? M-Marriage?”
“You heard it right. Mar. Riage.”
Boksun gave the final blow to Hayeong, who looked dazed.
No, you didn’t hear it wrong.
But Hayeong still couldn’t seem to grasp what her grandmother was saying.
“N-No… Why would I get married? I’m nineteen! Not twenty-nine!”
“……”
“Grandma, you didn’t get scammed or something, right? Or… are you secretly going to some weird church these days…?”
Hayeong frowned and grilled her grandmother.
“What do you take your grandma for, huh!”
At Hayeong’s extreme assumptions, Boksun couldn’t hold back and shouted.
But Hayeong didn’t flinch and asked again.
“Grandma, I’m about to start my senior year of high school! The most important time of my life!”
“I know.”
“Then why marriage?!”
The more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. Hayeong shot up from her seat.
Then Boksun placed a box from the chair next to her onto the dining table.
“Hayeong, this isn’t sudden. It was promised long ago.”
“…What?”
“A marriage that was arranged a very long time ago.”
To prove she wasn’t lying, Boksun opened an old candy box and took out a gold ring and a faded piece of paper.
She unfolded the neatly folded letter and placed it in front of Hayeong.
Hayeong’s eyes scanned the clean handwriting on the yellowed paper. At the same time, Boksun’s voice reached her ears.
“When your grandpa was young and working in the mines, he made a promise with a close friend that if they had a grandson and granddaughter, they’d marry them. He asked me to keep that promise on his deathbed.”
Just as Grandma said, the letter contained Grandpa’s request to arrange a marriage for his granddaughter.
“N-No way…”
“And, that’s exactly why this is the most important time to marry, Hayeong.”
Boksun’s voice, now calm and settled, pulled Hayeong’s gaze away from the letter.
“Grandma, I don’t get it. Why would I marry during the most important time of my life? You didn’t say a single word about this until now!”
“You’ll understand everything once we go to Seoul this weekend and meet the other family.”
Boksun cut her off firmly.
It was the first time since taking in Hayeong and her brother after their father died in a fire at age seven that she had shown this kind of expression and tone.
“No way…”
“That’s all there is to it.”
Faced with this unfamiliar side of her grandmother, Hayeong found herself unable to argue further.
There was something strangely sorrowful in her grandmother’s eyes — not forceful, but somber.
That weekend.
After being dragged to the neighborhood hair salon, Hayeong boarded a bus bound for Seoul.
They had even stopped at a downtown department store to buy her a nice dress.
To Hayeong, who had spent the last two years wearing gym clothes instead of her school uniform, the dress felt extremely foreign.
She quietly touched the scratchy wool fabric of the dress that didn’t feel like hers.
Everything happening felt surreal and unacceptable.
It was about a four-hour ride from Pohang to Seoul.
Next to her, Grandma slept peacefully. Meanwhile, Hayeong was lost in thought, with no answers in sight.
Why was her grandmother trying to marry her off now?
Even if it was Grandpa’s dying wish, this couldn’t be the right time.
The letter hadn’t even specified that she must marry at nineteen.
Then why…?
While her mind was spinning with question after question, Hayeong eventually drifted off to sleep on the bus.
When they arrived at the Seoul terminal, a car was already waiting.
Even Hayeong, who didn’t know much about cars, was taken aback by how luxurious it looked, both outside and in.
“If they’re sending a car like this just for guests… they must be really rich.”
With that vague thought, Hayeong followed her unusually quiet grandmother to the meeting place.
She blankly stared out the window at the passing skyscrapers.
She had lived in Seoul until she was seven with her father, but they were in the outskirts, so this was the first time she had seen the city center.
The towering, gleaming buildings. People walking past with indifferent faces. Wide roads and luxury foreign cars.
It felt like another world—one that didn’t suit her at all.
“Well, it’s not like I’ll be living here or anything.”
Trying to convince herself, Hayeong quietly observed the tightly packed urban scenery.
Though she was following along, she had already made up her mind to reject the marriage.
She figured it would be easier to persuade the other party than to change Grandma’s mind.
If it was a promise made when her grandfather was young, it had to be over 40 years ago.
If Grandma had brought it up first, the other family was probably just as baffled.
Plus, the grandson was said to be nineteen too — no way he’d want to get married either.
And she certainly didn’t.
Whatever it took, she’d team up with whoever was even slightly opposed to this marriage and put an end to it.
This ridiculous marriage.
While her eyes absorbed the glittering city, her mind was running simulations on how to say no.
The meeting place was a traditional Korean restaurant in Seorae Village, called Yehyang.
Like the car they rode in, the restaurant exuded elegance at a glance.
The pine-wood hanok-style building felt refined and imposing, and Hayeong instinctively straightened her back as if to resist being crushed by its atmosphere.
Posture and presence mattered in any situation.
As they entered the main hall, a middle-aged man in a suit greeted them.
“Good afternoon. I’m Chief Choi, working with Chairman Joo.”
“Oh, yes. Hello.”
Boksun gave a deep bow, and Hayeong followed suit with a polite nod.
“This way, please. The Chairman is waiting.”
“Thank you.”
Clutching the finest handbag she owned, Boksun nodded and followed.
Hayeong trailed behind as Chief Choi led them to a room and opened the door.
“Chairman, Mrs. Kim and her granddaughter have arrived.”
Hearing the formal announcement, Hayeong turned to the door.
A luxury foreign car, the title “Chairman,” and this kind of place…
It all added up — her grandfather’s old friend must’ve been loaded.
“Please come in.”
At the signal, they took off their shoes and entered the room.
Inside, a stout elderly man sat alone.
“Hello, I’m Joo Hakseok.”
He briefly stood and held out his hand. Boksun took it with a somewhat ambiguous expression.
After greeting Boksun, Chairman Joo turned to Hayeong.
“So, you’re Hayeong?”
“Yes… Hello.”
When Hayeong greeted him, Chairman Joo gave her a warm, approving look as if simply seeing her made him happy.
Then Boksun glanced around the room and asked,
“By the way… where’s Taeseong?”
“Ah—”
At her question, the Chairman slightly furrowed his brow, seemingly troubled.
But he quickly composed himself and replied in a deep, gentle voice,
“He’ll be a little late. Got caught up with something.”
Reassured by his confident tone, Boksun nodded and sat down.
Hayeong followed suit — and then, the Chairman began his interrogation.
“Hayeong, you’re nineteen this year, right?”
“Yes. Please, feel free to speak casually. If you’re Grandpa’s close friend, you’re like a grandfather to me too!”
With her polite and warm demeanor, Hayeong made Chairman Joo laugh heartily.
“Hoho! Alright. What kind of food do you like? What hobbies do you enjoy? What are your plans for the future? Which university do you want to go to?”
The barrage of questions made Hayeong shrink back.
“Uh… well… I…”
This was all too much.
“Why is he so enthusiastic about this?”
There was a hole in Hayeong’s plan: she had assumed the other side would be just as against the marriage.
Her eyes darted around nervously, and Chairman Joo chuckled sheepishly.
“Haha, sorry. Since you’re Gwangsik’s granddaughter, I was just really curious.”
At his apology, Boksun waved it off with a chuckle.
“Well, we’ll learn all that in time — she’ll be our granddaughter-in-law soon anyway.”
“Haha! Of course! I’ll make sure Hayeong gets everything she wants.”
Just as the adults’ conversation began speeding ahead of reality—
The sliding door burst open with a loud thud.
“I’m here.”
And when Hayeong saw who had entered the room, her face turned ghostly pale.
“…Vanilla-flavored Prince Complex?”
“Super Poop-head…?”
Taeseong, too, furrowed his brows as soon as he saw Hayeong.
Their second encounter — one that neither could tell was fate or misfortune.
